And Then I Saw Red
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: HYDRA has been outed, Insight is in ruins, and SHIELD has fallen. Knowing that when Steve wakes in his hospital bed, he's going to want answers about what happened to his best friend seventy years ago, Natasha delves into the memory of her past with the man she knew only as the Winter Soldier.
1. Remember

And Then I Saw Red

 _1\. Remember_

The ducks wallowing in the hospital ground's pond had no idea Natasha's world had just ended. Her work, her shame, her strength, her life, had come crashing down in the embers of Insight. Her hopes and dreams were as scattered as the shells of the helicarriers that had rained down on Washington. She had so much to answer for… and so many questions she still needed answering.

Reaching into the bag on her knee, she tore a few scraps of kale and tossed them to the water. The ducks knew what life was about. You grab your food before it sinks. And they did, gobbling down the green chunks and watching warily for more. She obliged.

Footsteps. Gravel crunching underfoot. Heavy. Male. Someone approaching from behind, from the left. Natasha didn't tense, because that would've given away the element of surprise, but she _did_ reach her fingers into her sleeve, to brush them against the thin edge of the cold steel blade tucked out of sight. Prepared for a fight, she waited. Patient. Just like her namesake.

"I'm surprised to find you here," said a familiar voice.

The leather-clad figure of Fury stepped forward, into her line of sight, and Natasha relinquished her touch on her blade. She could count on one hand the number of people she trusted in the world, and Fury was pretty damn near the top of that list.

She decided to nibble on the line he cast. Take his bait. See where it led. Scooting over on the bench to allow him room to sit, she asked, "Oh?"

He settled, his leather jacket creaking. It was frayed and singed around one corner, and the man who wore it still smelt of blood and sweat, of a man who had come too close to the Reaper's touch. The ducks paddled away, unnerved by this menacing, food-less stranger.

"Figured you'd be upstairs, keeping an eye on things."

Fury gestured to one of the windows in the side of the building overlooking the garden, and Natasha's gaze followed. She knew whose room he was indicating. She knew who lay on that bed. And she knew that when he woke up, he was going to have a lot of questions. Even more than she had.

"Wilson's keeping a vigil over Steve… he has that whole 'fanboy' thing going on," she said, though she took the venom out of her words. Sam Wilson seemed to be a good man. Maybe one day, she'd need to start using two hands for counting those trustworthy people. "Besides, our barbecued-badguy is under armed guard and unlikely to be jumping out of bed anytime soon." And it was nothing less than Rumlow deserved. With any luck, he'd do the world a favour and die. It wasn't as if he had anything left to live for.

 _And what do_ I _have to live for?_

She pushed away the traitorous thought. Sure, things were dark right now, but there was always a light to be found in dark places. She'd found one, years ago, in Clint Barton. And she suspected that if she stuck around Steve Rogers long enough, he'd help her find another light to cling to.

"Did you know?" asked Fury, breaking the late-afternoon silence of the garden. "When you set Rogers on the Winter Soldier's trail, did you know?"

The accusation cut like a dagger to the heart. She wanted to curl up into a protective ball to stem the pain… or lash out and direct it somewhere else. Before she could resort to either, she slipped a leash on her anger. Buried the heartache along with her regret. What was done was done. There could be no going back.

"No."

"Hmm."

Natasha cursed herself for taking so long to answer. Fury was a master at reading silences, and for every piece of information he let you know he held, there were another ten waiting to be revealed. Even now, with his world in ashes, he was clinging onto the life that he knew. Perhaps he simply didn't know how to be anything else.

 _Do I?_

The question unsettled her so much that, to cover up her discomfort, she reached into the bag and pulled out another handful of kale. This one was hurled with more force than she'd intended. The ducks gave her a dirty look as the vegetable-missile splashed them. Still, they went for the food.

"We did the right thing," she said.

"Are you telling that to me, or to yourself?" Fury countered. Always too damn astute for his own good. "Hill's already looking for the next assignment. She's moving on. Figures she'd be worth something to Stark… and will no doubt have her fingers in a dozen different Tony Stark pies by the end of the week. Why aren't you doing the same?"

For a long moment, she said nothing. What _could_ she say? That she was lost? Adrift? That she wasn't sure if she had it in her to start over again? That she'd seen so much and done so much as the Black Widow, that maybe now it was time to just be _Natasha Romanoff_?

 _Or Natalia Alianova? That cyber-cretin, Zola… he knew all about me. HYDRA knew all about me. What else is hidden in the ruins of their databanks?_

"Maybe I'm tired," she admitted. "Of the lies and the subterfuge and living constantly on the edge. Of dodging bullets and dodging the questions of friends. Maybe I'm tired of living in the darkness. Maybe it's time to step into the light."

"So you're going to stick with Rogers? You know the first thing he's going to do is run after Barnes."

Natasha forced her hands to relax. To not grip the bag of kale and twist. All too easy to imagine Alexander Pierce's neck in place of the leaves. Part of her—the Red Room part—wished she could've truly wrung his neck. It seemed so unfair, that he'd caused so much pain and suffering… and he'd gotten off lightly with a bullet to the shrivelled lump of his heart. Lighter than she. Lighter than Steve. Lighter than the Winter Soldier.

"No. I can't." _There is no going back._ "I'll see what intel I can dig up for Steve, but finding Barnes… that's up to him."

"Because you're tired? Or because you're afraid he might remember you?"

She didn't answer. She _was_ afraid he might remember. But she was equally afraid that he _wouldn't_ remember. That the missions they'd been on, the stolen moments, the brief flickers of warmth they'd shared… that they'd just be gone, like the swiftly fading sunlight. That the risks they'd taken and the sacrifices they'd made would be for nothing, because time and time again HYDRA had wiped them away.

"Did you _truly_ have no idea that the man you… knew professionally in your former life… was Barnes?"

She shook her head. Didn't want to talk about it. But also… did. She couldn't talk with Steve. It would be awkward, to say the least. But Fury… he probably knew it all anyway. Could probably tell it better than she, too.

"I knew he shot me, in Odessa. But that was just business. I knew he'd been around for a long time, but I thought that the _Winter Soldier_ was a codename for a long line of assassins… like the _Black Widow_. If I'd known who he was…"

What? What would she have done, or said? Back then, the name would've meant nothing to her. Steve Rogers and Captain America meant nothing to her. Even after meeting Steve, and learning who Barnes was… if he ever learnt she'd been so close to the Winter Soldier, he would never trust her again. She thought for sure she'd slipped up in the HYDRA armoured truck after she'd been shot. Thought he'd see right through her fear and her lie. But he and Wilson had put her distress down to blood loss. It was for the best.

"Maybe I can help track him down," said Fury. "I still have contacts. I'll shake a few trees, see what fruit falls loose, and send any information on the quiet to Rogers."

Natasha nodded. Very soon, Steve would wake up, and he would demand answers. But the world was already demanding them. What had happened to Insight? How had SHIELD fallen? Was HYDRA truly gone? Fury was about to go dark. Hill was already hopping into a new bed, and Rogers had a best friend to save. Somebody had to answer for what had happened within SHIELD. Perhaps that _somebody_ should be her.

"I'm gonna need intel from you," said Fury. "Dates, locations… missions." _Victims_. "Anything you can give me to help dig up cold, hard facts."

"Where do I start?" she sighed.

"How about you start at the beginning?"

"Sure." She pulled out another handful of kale dumped it into the pond. At least somebody would be well-fed today. "It was 1999, New Year's eve—the turn of the millennium. The skies of St. Petersburg were alive with colour and sound… the perfect conditions for an assassin to operate. I was fifteen, just a girl, and not yet the _Black Widow_. It was supposed to be my initiation. I was sent to kill a politician who was standing in the way of somebody important. I got into the house by climbing up the drain pipe and sneaking in via the child's bedroom." She looked out across the pond as the ghost of memory came back to haunt her. "The first thing I saw was the little girl's doll, abandoned on the floor. And then, I saw red…"

* * *

 _Author's note: This story comes as a result of a conversation I had with cairistiona7 about how the MCU might retcon a past WinterWidow relationship if they decide to go down that path. So, I thought I'd take a stab at it! Please Follow to keep updated, as chapters will not come regularly._

 _This story is not canon for any of my other stories, and this is the only fic I'll ever write that features a WinterWidow shipping. Also, there is no future-Bucky in this story, only an exploration of the Winter Soldier and Black Widow's past. Story will be T (maybe M) for violence, no smut. The cover image is credited to Greg Land._


	2. Millennium

And Then I Saw Red

 _2\. Millennium_

" _Vasiliy Aristov is a small man with big dreams. His dreams currently stand in the way of some very important friends of ours. Our friends wish to send him a message._ You _will be that message, Natalia."_

Madame B.'s words echoed around my head as the muscles in my arms and legs screamed against gravity. I'd done this before, a thousand times—in the training facility. Out here, in the 'real' world, it was harder. Colder. So cold. Even through my gloves, I could feel the bite of the ice compacted between the drainpipe and the wall.

I fixed my gaze on the window ledge two storeys above. Told myself I was almost there. Halfway to my destination, and to prove that I could, I looked down. A few streets away, revellers were out in their hundreds, winding their way down Nevsky Avenue towards _Dvortsovaya Ploshchad,_ where thousands more congregated outside the palace. They swarmed like an army of ants… and were as inconsequential to me as the insects they resembled.

Time grew short as I neared the ledge. An echo of Madame B. whispered a warning in my ear. " _Aristov must not live to see the new millennium."_

I moved faster, shimmying up the drainpipe. They would know. If I didn't kill Aristov before midnight, they would know. I had never failed before, and I didn't intend to start now. Not when I was so close.

My left hand hit ice and couldn't grip, and I stifled a scream as I lost my hold on the pipe. Instinctively, my legs clenched, the cold pipe pressing against my thighs with such force that I knew I'd be bruised. _Идиот!_ I told myself. _Concentrate on what is, not what may be._

Years of gymnastics had done wonders for my core. Dangling three storeys above the street, I closed my eyes, calmed my breaths, and focused on righting myself. I pulled myself up, and didn't open my eyes again until I had a firm grip on the treacherous pipe.

I'd imagined the ledge as my haven, but the ice had claimed that, too. Even the most proficient assassin could not control the elements… all we could do was try to adapt. So, once again, I clung to the pipe with my legs as I reached inside my jacket pocket for the set of picks I kept there.

Every girl in the Red Room had fashioned her own collection of picks out of different materials of different lengths, so that no two sets were the same. For the job at hand, I chose the small steel hook on the long arm, the very first pick I'd ever made—perfect for lifting the old-fashioned window catches that held closed a million St. Petersburg windows.

The catch made only the tiniest of sounds as I lifted it out of its cradle, and then the window slowly opened out. A wave of warmth buffeted my freezing face, and I tasted cinnamon and vanilla carried on the warm air. An image flashed through my mind, an image of myself and the other girls of the Red Room sitting at our desks as our instructor told us a story of a brother and sister and a gingerbread house. This place smelt like a gingerbread house might smell. It smelt sweet and comfortable… nothing at all like the Red Room.

Gymnastics, again. I swung myself up to the inner ledge, my rubber-soled boots gripping the varnished wood. Many people believe leather a suitable material for an assassin, but leather creaks and restricts, and God, how it makes you sweat. No, rubber is the quietest material known to man. My boots were soled with it, and my outfit that night was dark grey cloth, because true black does not exist in a city as bright as St. Petersburg. But the grey cloth did little to warm me against winter's bite. I almost would've preferred the creak of leather. Almost.

I slipped down into the darkened room and softly closed the window. I knew, from reconnaissance earlier in the day, that this was the daughter's room. _Svetlana_. And I knew, from a few well-placed phone calls using fake names, that Vasiliy wouldn't be attending his party's millennium celebrations because his daughter had been taken ill. Not my doing, but I could've arranged it, if fortune hadn't done the job for me.

Crouched beside the window, I paused, ears strained for the sound of the girl's breathing. I didn't know what was wrong with her, but some illnesses caused children to sleep poorly, or not at all. When I was eight, a girl a year younger than me came down with whooping cough. She'd kept us all awake for two nights with her coughing and rasping. Madame B. came for her in the middle of the third night, a white-coated doctor trotting at her heels. They took the girl away, and we never saw her again. I don't remember her name. It's easier not to remember.

There was no raspy intake of breath from Svetlana. I couldn't hear her cough or wheeze. Couldn't even hear the regular slow rhythm of deep sleep. Perhaps she was downstairs, or had gone to curl up in her parents' bed. I believe some children like to do that. Can't imagine why.

I stepped forward in the darkness, and my foot brushed against something solid. I froze, heart in my mouth, at any moment expecting the hiss of a cat or the bark of a dog. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, and when I saw what I'd kicked, my heart descended back to chest-height. It was a doll, one of those with a plastic face and ridiculously long blonde hair. The type a child might cradle, to make-believe she was a mother, too.

 _Brain-washing. Indoctrination._ If I had a daughter, I wouldn't teach her to cradle dolls and play at motherhood. I'd teach her as I'd been taught; to fight. To survive. To be something more than a vessel for some man's children. My daughter would serve Russia, as I served Russia. Proudly. Dangerously.

The glow of a night-light beside the bed cast a pale, shadowed light across the ceiling. I stepped forward, to check the bed, to be sure it truly was empty before I proceeded with my mission. That was when I saw the first spatterings of red. Blood has its own unique shade depending on where it comes from, on how oxygenated it is. This blood was bright, and shiny—a fresh bleed.

Something bubbled inside me, something I had not felt for a long time: unease. _A nosebleed_ , I told myself. The girl had had a nosebleed.

 _Look at the spray pattern_ , my inner analyst whispered. A fine pattern, fine as lace or the first frost of winter. Noses did not bleed like that, not even when they were broken. That fine pattern was blood released under pressure. Blood that spurted. Life's blood.

The bubbling of unease changed from a simmer to a boil as I stepped closer to the bed. The blankets rose over the mound of a small body, and I could tell even before I saw the glassy eyes in the pale face that the girl was dead. Blood has a certain smell, too, and that smell… I was drowning in it.

My mind leapt to wild conclusions, but I reined them in. Couldn't afford to make assumptions. Either this was a part of my initiation, or it wasn't. But either way, I would have to deal with it. Before I could do that, I needed to check out the rest of the house. Find my target before he found his daughter with her throat slit.

Then, I realised my first mistake. I should've cut the phone lines. It wouldn't have stopped him ringing out on his cell, but it might've bought me a few minutes. If he had a panic button, it might've stopped the signal getting out.

I left the girl where she lay. She was not the first dead girl I'd seen, and I doubted she'd be the last. I'd killed two myself, the last as recently as three months ago. Assassins fear neither death nor the dead. Everything passes. Everything has its time. This was Svetlana's, and I still had a mission to complete.

The hallway leading out of her room was a shrine to the small family. Pictures adorned the walls, a timeline of life from birth until present. Here, the couple with their newborn daughter. There, the family having a picnic in the countryside. The mother was pretty, with auburn hair a few shades lighter than my own. The picture of her wearing a summer dress made me stop and wonder. What colour had my own mother's hair been?

I swiftly put aside the foolish sentimentality and continued down the hall. I promised myself I would never again think of the nameless parents who'd abandoned me soon after my birth. It was the same lie I told myself every night, when I fell asleep to thoughts of what my parents might be doing, and whether they ever thought about the daughter they'd given up.

The second victim came as less of a shock. Not the mother, but the maid. A middle-aged woman with fine age lines creased around her unseeing green eyes. Her uniform, at least the white bits of it, held the same spray pattern as the girl's bed.

There are countless ways to kill a man. By knife, by poison, by strangulation or bludgeoning… The gaping slash in the maid's throat, that had severed the larynx to prevent her calling out, told me the killer who'd been here before me had a preference for close kills. And the efficiency… definitely a professional. Not some hired thug or botched robbery. This as somebody who knew what he—or she—was doing.

Had Madame B. sent a second student to carry out the killing? Had she pitted someone against me, to see who would succeed? It wouldn't be the first time, and only one student could ever come back from a mission like this. If another student was waiting for me…

 _I never fail._

The thought spurred me on. I crept on tiptoes down the hall and then down the stairs. They creaked, which made me wince, but it couldn't be helped. St. Petersburg was an old city, with many old houses. A lot of them spoke in their own voices, and this one was no different.

I found Vasiliy and his wife—I hadn't taken the time to learn her name—together in the parlour. Her auburn hair was stained a deeper shade of red, and even from a distance I could see she'd suffered the same fate as the other two. The husband… his body told a different story. I couldn't see the bullet embedded in his skull, but I could see its entry point, right in the middle of his forehead, not unlike one of those Hindu third-eye spots I'd been shown pictures of during my training. The mother, the daughter, the maid… they had been killed. But Vasiliy… he had been executed.

Somebody grabbed me from behind and yanked hard on my belt. I went flying backwards, into a shelf of books, and too late I remembered to exhale on impact. The wind was knocked out of me.

I lifted my head, my fingers grasping for the gun at my hip even as I tried to gasp air into my lungs, but a moving boot blurred my vision before connecting with my temple. Pain blossomed, a searing white light ripping through my head. Before I could gather my wits, I was picked up again, this time by the back of my shirt, and flung against a wall filled with framed photos. We came crashing down in an inelegant heap, those broken glass frames and I.

That boiling unease in my stomach roared into outright fear. I'd fought before. I'd been beaten before. But this wasn't like the sparrings of teenage girls trained to kill. It wasn't even like the mortal combat we were forced to engage in with each other. There was no finesse in this. No control. It was like a tidal wave, or a tornado; a force of nature, strong and insurmountable. Whoever had killed Vasiliy and his family was about to do the same to me. For the first and last time in my life, I was going to fail.

Panic lent strength to my bruised and aching body. Somehow, I managed to push myself to my feet, and as I heard the approach of heavy boots, I swung. My punch was knocked aside like a lion blocking the paw-swipe of a domestic kitten, and a hand was thrust through my feeble guard. Fingers closed around my throat. They squeezed, and they squeezed _hard_.

The world exploded. The night sky outside the window was filled with myriad colours; greens and blues and reds, purple, white, orange and yellow—colours and hues I didn't even have names for. A million gunpowder cannons marked the moment the millennium changed from nineteen to twenty, accompanied by the scream and whistle of rockets. And as the world cheered, as the rockets screamed and the fireworks exploded, as the Millennium Bug failed to bring civilisation to its knees, I slowly died.

Through my swimming vision, I made out a dark figure. He smelled of sweat and blood, of a man who had come so close to death that it had left a mark on his soul. His eyes were blue, two chips of cold ice, and as empty as the Siberian wastelands. I tried to mouth ' _please'_ , to tell him to stop, that he didn't need to do this, but all I could manage was a terrified wheeze as the last of the air in my lungs was forced out.

He pulled away with such speed that I collapsed in a heap, my hands leaping to my burning throat in case he decided to reassert his grip. But he didn't. As I gasped wonderful cool air into my lungs, he took a step back. Only when I could breathe normally did I dare look up.

He stood there, watching me, clad in leathers that looked like they creaked. His face said he didn't care. That he'd go where he wanted and do what he wanted regardless of how quiet he was. His eyes gave away nothing, and I expected a gloat or a taunt, something designed to provoke me into rushing towards my death.

Instead, he said in stilted Russian, "You are not on my list." And he turned away.

In all my life, nobody had ever turned away from me. Not my instructors, not my doctors, not the other girls in the Red Room. In our line of work, you learnt to watch your back. You never, ever, left yourself exposed.

But he did. Turned his back on me like I was nothing. Like I was a wasp or a gnat, some minor annoyance to be swatted or ignored at his whim. He turned for the window, lifted the catch, and pushed with more care than he'd shown me. He let the screams of rockets and the smell of gunpowder into the room, then he climbed onto the windowsill and crouched for a moment as he surveyed the bodies. He didn't give me a second glance, and the last thing I saw, before he disappeared from sight, was the flash of fireworks reflecting off the cold metal of his left arm.

 _Metal?_

I wanted to stay still, to wait in silence in case the assassin returned, but he'd just jumped from a height that would kill even the most accomplished gymnast. I had to know if he was truly gone. Whether he had killed himself in the fall. Whether there was any chance of him changing his mind and coming back for me.

I stepped around the bodies and their pools of blood. Made it to the window. Looked down and saw… nothing. The street was empty. The assassin was gone, like a ghost. I closed the window and re-fastened the catch. As if _that_ would stop him.

Alone, safe, I began to shiver. My neck still felt raw, my ribs and lower back bruised from being so casually tossed around the room. I had been shaken to my core… but even then, my training began to override my fear. The mission. That was what was important. I hadn't succeeded in my mission… but I hadn't entirely failed, either. The job was done. By my hand or another, Vasiliy was dead.

 _"Vasiliy must not become a martyr. Ensure this is not so."_

I'd done my homework. Learnt that Vasiliy was lobbying for prison reforms. Lighter sentences for non-violents. Thieves and cat-burglars. Russian prisons were full of them, and they usually came out worse than when they went in.

So, aching, bruised, sore and shaken, I made my way through the house and stripped it of everything valuable. The gold and silver. The mother's jewelry: pearls and emeralds and rubies. The family heirlooms. The stash of money I found inside an easily-cracked safe. The credit cards. The keys to the second home in Tyumen. I grabbed them all, and I shoved them into a leather bag I found in a wardrobe.

My entry route was my exit route. Down the frozen drainpipe, the bag slung over my shoulder. On the ground, the pandemonium of revelry covered the sound of broken glass as I smashed in a window at the back of the house. For the police, this should be an open and shut case. A robbery gone wrong. The victims at home with their poorly daughter instead of out celebrating, as everybody else was. Nobody need ever know that I had been here. They need never know what I hadn't done.

I slipped through the streets, keeping to the shadows, trusting to the revelries to keep potential witnesses occupied. When I was far enough away, I found a drain cover and managed to lift it. Unzipping the bag, I dumped its contents into the sewer, where they would never be found. On the outskirts of the city, I tossed the bag into a dumpster.

It was over. It was done. But as I subconsciously rubbed at the raw bruise forming on my neck, another thought played across my mind. What the hell was I going to report to Madame B.?

* * *

 _Author's note: I don't normally write in first-person, but it felt right for this part of the story, and helped me to get into Natasha's head. However, if you, audience folk, prefer a story in third-person perspective, please make comments in the box below (or send a PM) and if the majority want third-person, I will switch back for future chapters._

 _For info, I haven't read any comics related to Black Widow, the Winter Soldier or the Red Room (as a KGB facility), so please don't expect this story to follow comic canon. It's set entirely in theoretical MCU._

 _For anybody not old enough to remember (-_-) the Millennium Bug was expected to break the whole world when computer clocks ticked over from 99 to 00... it was suggested that computers and servers etc. wouldn't be able to process that "00" meant 2000 and not 1900. Banks were supposed to implode and entire economies were supposed to come tumbling down. Instead of catapulting us all back 100 years in time, the Millennium Bug did... nothing. As you can see, the world did not end. Hooray._


	3. Report

And Then I Saw Red

 _3\. Report_

A year earlier, a girl named Karina had been sent on an initiation mission to Moscow. She failed to return before her allocated deadline, and was declared missing, a traitor. Others were sent to hunt her down and make an example out of her. And so, as I left St. Petersburg, I knew that my time was short, and that every second was precious. Still, I couldn't help but keep checking over my shoulder, scanning the shadows for a tall man in dark leathers.

My dilemma: did I take the fastest route back to the Red Room, and risk leading an unknown assassin to our highly secret training facility? Or did I try to cover my tracks and leave false trails, to throw off the man who might be following me? If I erred on the side of caution, I might not make it back in time. I, like Karina, might find myself hunted by my fellow students.

On the other hand, if I allowed some rogue element to discover our facility, my mission would most definitely be considered a resounding failure.

In the end, need and luck decided for me. Need demanded that I return as swiftly as possible using as much caution as possible, but I'd been more injured than I'd realised during my brief, one-sided fight. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, my aches were starting to creep in. My ankle was sprained, not badly enough to hobble me, but bad enough to cause me to limp. Two of my ribs I was sure were broken—possibly more. My nose had bled several times as I crept through the snowy streets, and I'd had to pop my dislocated shoulder back into place using a wall to assist.

For the first time in a long time, I was acutely aware that I was a fifteen year old girl. I was out alone, at night, and I was injured. The mysterious, leather-clad assassin had thrown me around like a paper doll, and now I was vulnerable not just to him, but to others.

Luck was with me. On the outskirts of the city, as the explosions and whistles faded in intensity, I passed an industrial unit. Out front, with its engine running, was a delivery truck, its driver watching impatiently as two other men loaded it with pallets. On the side of the truck was the name and address of the company, and I knew that to get back to its place of origin, it would pass within a few miles of the Red Room. The wheels of the Motherland's industry turned even when those within cities celebrated. For long-haul drivers, this was just another night at work. Same for me, really.

Taking a deep breath, I forced calm into my body. Told myself to ignore the pain. I moved forward in the stealthiest crouch I could manage, and unclipped the closed canvas side of the truck. When the men loading it went to get another pallet from the warehouse, I slipped into the truck and found a small, dark corner right at the back. It was a tight squeeze, but it was safer than the open road. Safer than the risk of discovery, and faster than trying to return on my own two feet.

The journey was uncomfortable. Bumpy. Cramped. Cold. I rubbed my gloved hands together constantly, relishing what little heat the friction produced. I tried to moderate my breathing, to prevent my broken ribs from worsening. I was miserable, but I was alive.

My mind went back to that parlour, and I thought about all the things that necessity had forced me to ignore. Who was the assassin? Who had sent him? He was very clearly not Red Room trained—only girls were eligible to undertake the Black Widow training. Was he a Russian assassin, or a foreigner? Had he military training? His heavy boots suggested it, so I went with it. Some soldier, perhaps, conscripted to undertake assassination work. Probably not KGB, since they had us, and we were the best.

Or so we'd been told.

He'd killed them all. Vasiliy. Svetlana. The red-haired mother. The middle-aged nurse. Why? _A message_. Such a slaughter could be nothing else. But was it a message for others in Aristov's party, or for us? If it was the former, then my actions in staging a botched robbery might have undermined the killing. That family may have died for nothing. Had my actions risked the ire of some other group or organisation? Would they come after me, after us, in retaliation?

The man… he'd seen me. Even if he didn't know who or what I was, he'd seen my face. My gun. He was probably reporting everything to his commanders right now. But… he'd let me go. That was stupid. A witness? Regardless of his list, to leave a witness was the height of foolishness. It was unprofessional. He'd killed four people in cold blood. What did he have to lose by killing one more? He was clearly capable. He almost had.

Eventually, I was forced to put my musings aside. I disembarked painfully from the truck. Probably broke another rib as I rolled out of the moving vehicle and came to a stop on the icy road. Out here, away from the lights of civilisation, it was truly dark. If it hadn't been for the clear night sky, for the stars to guide my way and the moon to light my path, I might not have made it back to the austere old ballet academy that served as a front for the Red Room.

Weary, in pain and half-frozen, I limped through the front gates just as the sun was cresting the horizon. I didn't see the sentries in the woods around the academy, who guarded the compound from intrusion or flight, but I knew they'd be watching. I knew that by the time I'd limped my way into the entrance hall, Madame B. would have been alerted and would be waiting for me in her office.

I was not wrong. Madame B.'s assistant, Jermija, opened the front door before I could even lift my hand to knock. Wordlessly, she led me inside. Only after the door was locked and bolted did she turn to regard me with her cool grey eyes. Those eyes had seen dozens of girls pass through the Red Room over the years, and she had never, not once, played favourites.

"The Madame will see you now," she said, gesturing to the corridor leading to the office.

I steeled myself. Forced myself to stand a little straighter in spite of my broken ribs. Tried to stem the cold-induce shivers that wracked my body. Madame B. tolerated no weakness. Bad enough that I'd come back like this. Bad enough that I had not delivered the message to Vasiliy Aristov. But to beg, or plead, or whimper… a heinous crime for a girl to commit, regardless of her age or her pain. My one solace was that at least the office would be warm.

Pain lanced through my numb fingers when I knocked on the heavy oak door. I waited until I was called in, and stepped into the queen spider's lair.

The fire was out. The office was only marginally warmer than the air outside. I should've known.

She did not rise as I closed the door behind me and came to stand in front of her desk. Her face, as pale and austere as the building, was a mask betraying nothing as she assessed me frankly. Like me, she was dressed in grey cloth, but if the cold bothered her, she gave no sign.

When she finally spoke, I almost jumped. But I forced myself to meet her gaze. That much, I could do.

"When I was told you had returned injured and limping, my first thought was that your mission had failed," she said, her voice as icy as the weather outside. "But I cannot imagine you would be foolish enough to return here without completing your initiation. You know the punishment for failure, Natalia."

"I… I did not fail, Madame." I couldn't help the stammer in my voice. Exhaustion, pain and cold were working against me, and I didn't have much fight left in me. "Vasiliy Aristov is dead."

"Then how did you come to be in this state?"

I decided on the truth. Full disclosure. I could try to lie my way out of it, but it was risky, and I still wasn't certain this wasn't all just some test concocted by Madame B.

"By the time I got to Vasiliy, he was already dead," I explained. "As were his wife, daughter, and their maid. The latter three had their throats cut. Vasiliy was shot through the head at close range."

I had never seen Madame B. surprised before, and as one thin eyebrow arched upwards towards her hair-line, I knew this was the closest she would ever come to showing that emotion.

"You fought the assailant?"

"Yes." Not a lie. I'd thrown a punch, even if it hadn't connected. "It was a man. Tall. Dark-haired. Unshaven. He carried knives, at least one gun, and he spoke Russian. And he…" This would sound crazy, but I had to report it. "His left arm looked like it was made of metal."

Madame B. tutted and sighed. She rose from her seat and crouched by the chimney to mercifully light the fire.

"So. You met the Winter Soldier."

 _Winter Soldier?_ Was that my attacker's codename? Was he a true soldier, or was it just a title? Where had he come from? Why had he never been mentioned during my training before? If I didn't know about him, neither did my fellow students. And knowledge was power.

"He said… he said I wasn't on his list," I offered, hoping to tease out more information. "He could've killed me, but he let me go."

Madame B. scoffed loudly. "Of course you weren't on its list! Had you been on its list, you would not be standing here now."

"'Its'?"

She stopped in front of the fire, blocking the flames from reaching me. "Few know of the Winter Soldier. Few have seen him, and fewer still have lived to tell about it. As I understand it, what you perceive to be a man is actually a complex series of assassination programming. Men are weak. They have needs. Desires. Food. Drink. Rest. Comfort. Companionship. The Winter Soldier has no needs. No desires. It is a machine dedicated entirely to carrying out its orders. To killing."

"So… he… it… is a better assassin than the Black Widow?" I felt like a traitor for even suggesting it, but it sounded like this 'Winter Soldier' was engineered for the task for which I had spent my whole life training.

Madame B. did not like my question, either. She stepped forward, eyes narrowing as she gripped my chin between her spindly fingers. Her voice came out low, dangerous.

"The Winter Soldier is a hammer. The tool of a person who requires overwhelming force regardless of the cost. You, the other girls… you are surgical knives. You can work in the shadows of the night, or in the warm light of day. You can observe a crowd and blend in perfectly. There is no fence or door or lock that can keep you out. Never believe that you are second best. And never believe anybody who would try to convince you of the same."

My face ached, but I said nothing. What was there to say? Madame B. had not been there. She hadn't felt the power in the hands that had so easily thrown me and choked me. She hadn't seen the cold efficiency of the kills.

She relinquished her grip and moved away from the fire. A cloud of warm air spilled forward and enveloped me. It only intensified my suppressed shivering.

"I do not know why the Winter Soldier spared your life," she said, resuming her seat. "Perhaps it was instructed to kill only those on its list. Perhaps it was not told to account for potential witnesses. Perhaps it, and its programmers, simply did not care if it was seen. There have been dozens of kills credited to the Winter Soldier since the mid nineteen-fifties, but most—including myself, until now—had believed it to be a ghost story, or the bold exaggerations of somebody with too much time on his hands and an overactive imagination. Now, though… I suspect there _is_ a Winter Soldier, or more likely, a succession of them. Maybe the one you encountered is new, and unused to taking the initiative. At any rate, I believe the circumstances are… unique… enough to allow us to reschedule your initiation." She sniffed, as if it was of no consequence. "And the intelligence you have brought us, that the Winter Soldier is no mere story, may even be enough to excuse your failure."

" _I never fail!"_ I wanted to scream. Instead, I bowed my head, and said, "Thank you, Madame B."

"Hmph. Go and get your injuries seen to, and then report to the shooting range. The students are undertaking training with sniper rifles, today, and your pain will not excuse you from further training. Perhaps the next time you see the Winter Soldier, it should be down the barrel of a gun… from a mile away."

~o~

The girls were full of whispers, that day, and they didn't care for whispering in front of me, as well as behind my back. I caught snatches of speculation about how my mission had gone down and why I was in such an injured state. Some thought I'd failed but been given a second chance because I was Madame B.'s 'favourite'—delusional fools, if they believed that woman had a favourite student. But they could see no other reason for my return to training. There were only two ways students came through their initiation; they either graduated, or died. I had done neither. I was an oddity.

That night after lights out, in our single large dorm, Yelena turned in her bed to face me. I couldn't see her turn, because the dorm had no windows and was black as pitch, but I could hear the creak of her mattress as she rolled, and feel her warm toothpaste-fresh breath gently caress my face as she whispered.

"What happened, Natalia? Why have you returned? Did something go wrong?"

Yelena was the closest thing I had to a friend in that place, though we didn't dare show any warmth towards each other in public. Friendship was weakness, and girls who were suspected to have formed friendships were pitted against each other in mortal combat. Neither of us wanted that.

Madame B. hadn't forbidden me from speaking about the Winter Soldier, so I told her in whispers of the events of the night. She gave no sympathy, and I expected none.

"You were careless," she said. "Complacent. He should not have been able to sneak up on you. You might have defended yourself better, if he hadn't caught you off guard."

I nodded to myself. She was right. Luck was the only reason I hadn't died. Luck, and perhaps negligence on behalf of the Winter Soldier's commanders.

"If I ever encounter him, I will kill him," she said.

"Then I pray you don't encounter him. He's no ordinary man, Yelena. The Madame told me he has been made for the single purpose of killing. He is strong, and fast, and vicious." And efficient. He'd left no sign of his presence, other than the bodies. I still had no idea how he'd even gotten into the home in the first place. I shivered. Perhaps he really _was_ a ghost.

"And we are no ordinary women, Natalia. Sometimes, I think you forget that."

She rolled over and fell silent, and I took it as a sign that she wanted to sleep. I'd offended her, by allowing myself to be hurt. Yelena believed fervently in the Black Widow. She believed that we were the greatest assassins to ever walk the Earth. That we were unstoppable. My injuries were an affront to her beliefs.

Once, I'd believed it too. But an encounter with a ghost story had made me wonder if some of the things we'd been told by our instructors might be nothing more than lies. Baby dolls for us to cradle and coo over, like Svetlana's blood-soaked toy.


	4. Stake-Out

And Then I Saw Red

 _4\. Stake-Out_

Three years passed without even a whisper of the Winter Soldier. No kills credited to him. No un-credited kills which might have belonged to him. No stories of families found massacred in their homes. If it weren't for the fact that I'd seen him with my own eyes, and felt his rough hand around my throat, I could easily have believed that he'd never existed. It was as if he truly was a ghost, with the power to disappear completely.

I passed my initiation. I was sterilised, and became a Black Widow. Three months later, Yelena passed, too. I heard the news from my KGB handler, a man named Sergei. He tossed me the information as if it was nothing more than a cookie.

Not long after my eighteenth birthday, I was sent to America. Security had been tightened at airports, and immigration services were on the lookout for _shady_ types. Whatever that type was, it wasn't _Kati Kask_ , an Estonian model travelling to the U.S. for a photoshoot at the behest of a famous glossy magazine. She was my cover, and the irony was, there really _was_ a photoshoot. Sergei had arranged it, along with my fake ID.

" _Travel to New York,"_ he told me. " _Your accommodation has been arranged. The magazine will arrange your transport. After it is done, you will spend three days sight-seeing in the city. Your return flight had already been booked."_

"And my mission?"

He handed me a dossier. "This man has crossed the wrong people too many times. It's felt that with him out of the way, a more… pliable… leader will arise."

I thumbed through the dossier. The man in question was Antonio Ferretti, the head of New York's mafia. A high profile kill. Not an easy kill. He would be protected. I said as much to Sergei, who nodded.

"In the back of the dossier you will find several photographs of men you will also have to eliminate when you kill Ferretti. His head of security, and his lackeys, most likely to cause trouble for Ferretti's successor."

"Not a problem," I assured him.

"There is one more thing." His face twisted as if tasting something unpleasant. "Other parties have an interest in ensuring Ferretti's termination. One such party will be sending an agent to work with you, to ensure the task is completed. I'm told his agent will do the legwork, and provide weapons and a plan. It is probably for the best; we can hardly send you to America with your usual arsenal."

I bristled at the idea of working with another assassin—it suggested I wasn't up to the task alone—but I had no say in the matter. Through a clenched jaw, I asked, "Who is this agent?"

"I don't know. You will be contacted when you reach your hotel." He stepped forward, frowning in that wrinkled-forehead way he had when he was troubled. "Watch yourself, Natalia. You will be on foreign soil, working with an unknown agent. You will not have backup."

I stifled a wry smile. "When have I ever needed it?"

Two days later, I was on a plane bound for the U.S. Not my first trip there, but my first since the heightened security measures. I gave immigration control no reason to suspect me. I played the overwhelmed foreigner card. I pouted in all the right places, and flirted a little with one of the officers. My push-up bra and low-cut shirt probably helped, though I was dying to get out of both and slip into something more comfortable. _The ends justify the means,_ I told myself.

I have to hand it to the Americans; they know how to do things in style. There was a man waiting for me at the airport, with my—Kati's—name printed on a large white card held between his hands. He offered to carry my bags. Directed me towards the limousine (a first for me) and bade me enjoy the minibar.

So, I did.

The hotel was nice, too. Room service, air conditioning, cable TV… not that those luxuries didn't exist in Russia; I just wasn't used to experiencing them very often.

The photoshoot wasn't scheduled until the following morning, to allow 'Kati' to recover from jetlag, so I donned a more casual, more comfortable, pair of jeans and a sweater, and headed out to explore New York.

It was loud. It was noisy. It was fast and colourful and everybody I passed had a cellphone surgically attached to their ear. After an hour of walking, I found myself in a quieter neighbourhood, where I did a little opportunistic shopping. Not Gucci and Prada for me; I hit the hardware stores and the pawn shops. Nails, screws, wires, strips of metal, superglue… a girl's gotta have her picks, and I'd left my set at home. You never know when a good set of picks will come in handy, and I could make a functional set in less than thirty minutes with the fruits of my hardware store shopping spree.

The pawn shop was where I picked up a knife. Nothing large and flashy, just a little flip-lock thing. Despite Sergei's assurances, I wasn't going to trust to some stranger to supply me with weapons. I wasn't stupid enough to try concealing a gun, but a knife seemed safe enough.

The man behind the counter was a little too nosy for my liking. One of those who wants to know what kinda hands he's putting a weapon into, even if it's just a knife. Trust me to run into the only moral pawn-broker in New York! I got around his suspicion by telling him, in my well-practised American accent, that I had an abusive ex-boyfriend and felt more comfortable with a little protection. He tried to sell me a gun; I told him the knife would be fine.

After depositing my goods back in my room, I ate out. I picked the swankiest restaurant that didn't require reservations, donned the li'l black dress I'd packed in my luggage case, and engaged in an evening of hedonism.

My fake Estonian ID claimed I was 22, so I drank cocktails that cost more per glass than the average Russian labourer earned in a week. I ate lobster, because all the rich people around me were eating it, and found it to be overrated. Probably one of those things rich people eat because eating it is what rich people do. I ate a dessert so sweet that it probably ought to have been banned by the Geneva convention. All in all, I took great advantage of my free rein, and had more fun in one night than I'd had in the past two years.

But it wasn't me. How does the phrase go? _It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here._ With money comes a certain fakeness about things. If you want real, travel to Murmansk Oblast and watch the weather-beaten fishermen hauling in their nets, or wander through Kostroma where farmers and miners struggle to eke out a pitiful existence in abandoned villages. Lobster and Porsche and Versace… that's not real. It's an illusion. A beautiful lie.

I ended my night of decadence with a packet of M&Ms in my hotel bed, and only realised in the morning, when I woke up resembling a Smurf, that I'd dropped a couple of the blue ones under the doona.

The photoshoot went much as I'd expected. The chauffeur brought the limo to pick me up and drive me to the venue. I saw some nice sights along the way, including the Statue of Liberty. The woman no assassin had yet been able to slay, though many had tried, one way or another.

The magazine's photo room was in a modern building, all curves and sterile chrome and towering windows with expansive views. A blank canvas, just waiting for somebody to scribble all over it, to inject a little personality and charm. I couldn't imagine working in a place so devoid of character. I almost felt _homesick._ Almost.

The hair and makeup artists knew what they were doing. I was manhandled into a chair and subjected to an intense regime involving curlers and brushes and powders and creams. The guy who did my hair tutted over my split ends before cutting them off. The woman who did my makeup bemoaned the bags under my eyes and the dry state of my skin.

I'd always considered myself pretty, with a sort of understated, natural beauty. I wouldn't exactly liken myself to Helen of Troy, but I knew my features were pleasing, and I knew how to use the assets nature had gifted to me. When the pair were done, I didn't even recognise myself in the mirror. My skin was flawless. I had cheekbones in whole new places. My lashes were three times longer, and my eyebrows fuller than I remembered. My hair had been curled at different lengths, giving volume and bounce, and it shone like polished amber.

I had outfits picked out for me by the wardrobe specialist. Flowing dresses. Tailored suits. Heels so high I was practically on my tiptoes, just like in ballet class. When I was finally deemed camera-worthy, I was introduced to the photographer, _Jean_ —pronounced with the Frenchest of accents. He had no concept of personal space. _Mwah, mwah,_ one on each cheek. Throughout the shoot, he kept up a diatribe of _Fabulous, darling, the camera loves you, now to the left, pout a little, fabulous._

I felt exposed, and not because of the low-cut dress. For a spy and assassin, secrecy is everything. You don't get far if everybody recognises your face. I took consolation from the fact that it was doubtful anybody would ever recognise me with such a painted face. Plus, Sergei had already assured me that the pictures would never end up in print. This was all an elaborate act.

After the shoot, Jean escorted me back to the dressing room so I could change. He made vague promises of fame and riches, and told me he'd be in touch with my agent once the negatives had been developed. The sad thing was, I knew that even after all the beautification I'd gone through, the pictures would still be photoshopped. For glossy magazines, _natural_ was never _perfect_.

I was driven back to the hotel, and bid farewell to my chauffeur. As I passed the reception desk, the clerk called out, "Miss Kask?" and beckoned me over. He handed me an envelope, and I thanked him with a smile. I took it up to my room, and opened it in privacy. Inside were two items. The first was a small slip of paper, printed rather than hand-written. And it was printed in Russian.

 _Howard Johnson. 38-61. 12th Street. Long Island City. NY11101. 8PM. Rm 302._

The second item was a magstripe keycard. I held it as I sank down on the bed. It seemed it was time to go to work.

o - o - o - o - o

My hotel's clerk was kind enough to locate me a gym not far from the address I'd been given in Long Island City, though he seemed bemused that I wanted to travel so far for a gym, instead of using the hotel's on-site facilities.

I went shopping again. On the high street, I bought a gym bag, some jogging pants and a baby-pink sweatshirt that had 'gym bunny' written across the front. In several small, back-alley shops, I bought darker items of clothing. The sort Madame B. would've approved of.

At 7pm, I dressed in my jogging pants and sweatshirt and hopped in a taxi. I didn't want to keep Howard Johnson waiting, but I also wanted a chance to scope the place out before putting the keycard to work. No point going in blind.

At the gym, I paid the taxi driver, then waited for the cab to drive out of view before setting off down the street, my gym bag full of dark clothes over my shoulder. My flip-knife was a comforting weight in my sweatshirt's pocket. I would not be caught unawares.

Howard Johnson wasn't a man. It was the name of a hotel at the address I'd been given. Not a nice hotel. Not like the one the KGB had put me up in. This place looked only a step up from the seedy motels which littered the less affluent areas of the city. With some trepidation, I reached out to open the front door.

The concierge looked up from the desk as I entered, but when I flashed my keycard at him, he let me pass without discussion. I opted for the stairs, rather than the elevator, and regulated my breathing as I hiked up to the third floor. As I walked, I caressed the knife in my pocket. If this 'agent' thought that meeting me in a hotel was going to be indicative of our time together, he was going to be painfully mistaken.

Outside room 302, I stopped and pressed my ear to the door. Silence. Maybe I was here before my contact, or maybe he was in there waiting in silence. There was only one way to find out. I slid the keycard through the reader, and watched the little LED turn from red to green.

The room wasn't in total darkness. The bedside lamp had been left on, and it sat in a pool of pale orange light. _Considerate_. At least I wouldn't be walking into a dark room. At least I wouldn't stumble over the inconveniently placed shoe stand.

At first, I thought I was alone. Then, the curtain moved. Somebody was standing beside the window. Somebody who'd already set up a piece of equipment, though it was in the shadows, so I couldn't tell whether it was a telescope or a sniper rifle.

"You must be my contact," I said, tossing my gym bag onto the bed. "Sorry I'm early."

There was no response.

"Have you done this before?" Still, silence. Maybe my contact had had his vocal cords removed. It was one way of ensuring the silence of an operative, but it was usually reserved for the most brutal of killers who never needed to engage in sensitive undercover work.

"Look," I said, fighting a sigh, "if we're going to do this, I'm going to see you eventually. So, step forward, into the light, and give me a name."

He detached himself from the shadows and stepped forward. A heavy pair of boots appeared first, and the pale orange light revealed dark kevlar pants, then a body-protective jacket, all kevlar and creaky leather. Scruffy dark hair framed a face badly in need of a shave, and from behind two chips of blue ice, a killing machine watched me.

My mouth went dry as I stumbled back and groped in my pocket for the knife.

It was the Winter Soldier.


	5. Mission

_Author's note: Sorry it took so long to update. I was hoping to have this up last Friday, but it's been a busy few days in Spacemanland. Just FYI, when the characters are speaking in this chapter, they're actually conversing in Russian. I have very kindly translated it into English for your ease of reading. ;)_

* * *

And Then I Saw Red

 _5\. Mission_

He watched as I stumbled back and tripped over the ill-placed shoe rack. I flung out my arm and caught the wall before I could fall flat on my back, and at the same time, I pulled the knife from my pocket and flipped the blade out. What had seemed a suitable weapon now looked… feeble. A toothpick, to the man who three years ago had left me and my pride beaten and bruised.

His features remained expressionless. If he was underestimating me, it would be at his peril. I was no longer an untested fifteen year old girl who'd been crept up on. Since then, I'd honed my fighting technique. I was far more deadly than I had been before; and I'd been pretty deadly before.

The silence deepened. Why didn't he say something? Snap at me to put the knife away, or ask if I'd recovered from the last beating he'd given me? Why was he just watching, as if studying me? Finally, after running his gaze up and down a few times, he spoke in a voice that croaked roughly, as if unused to speaking.

"I think you might be in the wrong room."

I looked down, and realised the source of his confusion. It was the baby-pink sweatshirt with the words 'gym bunny' emblazoned across the front.

"This? This is called a _disguise_." I gave him a similarly assessing once-over. "Did the concept bypass you entirely? How do you even get around, looking like an extra from a _Judge Dredd_ set?"

Apparently, my comment wasn't worthy of an answer. The Winter Soldier turned and gestured to the window. "I've set up a sniping point adjacent to the building where the target is currently meeting several of his compatriots. From here, I should have a clean shot. I need you on the ground in case any secondary targets attempt to run."

"Riiight. I'll be on the ground. Conveniently within your sights." From the blank look on his face, I guessed my sarcasm had gone over his head. "Have you forgotten what happened the _last_ time we met?"

His eyebrows dipped into a frown. "I've never met you before. Regardless, I won't shoot you. You're not on my list."

"You said that last time, too. Right after you dislocated my shoulder, gave me a concussion, and almost strangled me."

"You must be thinking of somebody else. I've never met you before." He stepped back, and resumed his place at the gun by the window. "If the target remains true to his previous schedules, it will be another hour or so before he leaves his meeting." He tilted his chin towards another door in the room. "There is time for you to change out of your… disguise."

What else could I do? Stand there holding the knife while he effectively ignored me? Attack him and jeopardise the entire mission? Leave, and do the same? I decided to follow his suggestion. Besides, my interest was piqued. Madame B. had told me the Winter Soldier was more computer program than man. This was an opportunity to try and learn a little more about it. About _him_. Knowledge is power.

I grabbed my gym bag and performed a quick change in the en-suite bathroom. Off came the jogging pants and the pink sweatshirt, replaced by the grey leggings and grey shirt I'd bought earlier. I ditched my trainers in favour of a pair of second-hand leather boots. Second-hand leather is always softer and less creaky than new.

Back in the room, the Winter Soldier was staring out the window at the building on the opposite side of the street. He reminded me very much of a hunting cat. Patient. Focused. Intense. I could picture him springing into action with deadly efficiency. From zero to sixty in two seconds. A high-performance sports car could do the same, but a car was a machine. Was he?

My gaze strayed back to his metal arm. I was itching to know what it was made of, and how it had been constructed. A couple of years earlier, I'd talked at great lengths with a cyberneticist, a fascinating man whose work with injured war veterans had potential combat application. I'd killed him shortly after, but his work had been groundbreaking nonetheless. With time to kill, I decided to pry.

"What should I call you?" I asked.

His gaze didn't alter as he replied. "Why do you need to call me anything?"

"Because that's what people do when they work together. They refer to each other by name. What name should I call you?"

There was a brief moment of hesitation before he spoke again. "Soldat. They call me _Soldat_."

"Because you're a soldier?" I prompted. "The Winter Soldier?"

"It is summer."

Great. Literal people were the worst kind of smart-asses around, and I got the feeling that he wasn't being a smart-ass on purpose. If he really was nothing more than a series of commands, he likely had no option but to interpret things literally.

"Do you have another name?" I asked. "A given name?" Again, silence. "What did your parents call you?"

"I don't have any parents."

I stashed my bag underneath the bed, then took a seat in the pool of amber lamplight on the mattress. Not the side of the mattress closest to him, of course. I wasn't _that_ crazy.

"Everybody has parents."

That got his attention. His gaze transferred to my face. "What did your parents call you?"

The question was so unexpected, his eyes so disarming, that my mind hit a brick wall. _Lie_ my inner survivalist told me. This profession was built on lies and deceptions. It was not only expected; it was necessary. But… some other part of me prompted me to be honest. There was something different about this man, or this machine, whatever he was. I'd met a lot of assassins in my line of work, and they tended to fit a particular mould. Arrogant, self-confident, aloof. The Winter Soldier definitely had 'aloof' down pat, but the ego, the arrogance… I couldn't get a sense of it. Was that what Madame B. had meant by 'machine'? Did he have no 'self' to feel pride about?

"Natalia," I replied at last.

He nodded. "Then I will call you Natalia. It's faster to say than the codename I was given for you."

"And what codename is that?"

"KGB Contact Three."

Three? What had happened to one and two? Then again, I probably didn't want to know.

"Right. So, you really don't remember your parents?" He shook his head. "If you don't have parents, where did you come from?"

He moved his arm—the one of flesh—to caress the handle of a Russian military knife tucked into a sheath on his belt. "If you continue to attempt to interrogate me, I will be forced to terminate you."

I eyed the knife, and the fingers that stroked it. He probably didn't need the knife to kill me. Could probably do it with his bare hands. "And what guarantees do I have that you won't try to kill me at the end of this mission anyway?"

"If you were on my list, you would already be dead." He said it with no more emotion than he'd shown so far. He stepped forward, his face unreadable, his eyes focused on mine. "If you were on my list, I would've taken that child's toy of a knife from your pocket and gutted you with it the moment you stepped into this room. If you were on my list, your lifeless body would already be wrapped in the bedsheet, ready for hauling away and dumping some place where it would never be found. Pray you are never on my list, Natalia."

My mouth went dry and I itched to get off the bed, but I forced myself to remain still. Expressionless. Emotion was weakness, and fear was the greatest weakness of them all. I couldn't afford to let him see any vulnerability within me. They say that animals can smell fear, and right then, I was pretty sure the Winter Soldier could, too.

He took my silence to indicate I was sufficiently cowed, and returned to the window. All thoughts of engaging _Soldat_ in conversation abandoned me. Madame B. had been right. This wasn't a man. It was a machine. A cold, unthinking, unfeeling, killing machine.

The seconds passed as minutes; the minutes, hours. Slowly, my nerve returned. I dared to relax, just a little. As I did, I realised I was still little more than a spectator in this assassination.

"I'll need a weapon," I said. "Something more than a child's toy."

From the shadows, he picked up a large canvas carryall, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. He tossed the bag casually onto the bed, and returned his focus to the window.

I reached for it slowly, certain that one wrong move might be the equivalent of waving a red flag in a bull's face. Unzipping the bag, I found a healthy supply of guns, knuckle-busters and knives. He even had a set of shuriken—I hadn't realised anybody still used them.

I settled for a two pistols, a matching pair of Glocks, and clipped their holsters around my waist. Then, as I'd been taught at the tender age of seven, I stripped and cleaned both weapons, checking their mechanical parts and their ammo clips. When I glanced up to check on my 'companion', I found him watching me as I reassembled the weapons.

"It's nothing personal," I said. "I just like to be sure of the state of my weapons before I take them into combat."

"Then you are more competent than KGB Contact Two."

Yep. I definitely didn't want to know.

The minutes continued to drag by. Never before had I been so painfully aware of the passing of time. Thankfully, my fear had diminished somewhat. The Winter Soldier was right; if he wanted to kill me, he could've done so before now. For this mission, at least, we were on the same team.

A quiet hiss drew my attention, my head snapping up with such speed that my neck made a horrible, crunching, squelching noise. The Winter Soldier was resting back against the wall beside the window, his eyes closed, his flesh hand resting just above his stomach.

"Something wrong?" I asked, praying it was so. If something was wrong, maybe I could use it to my advantage.

"Pain," he gasped.

Pain? Machines did not feel pain. "Can you describe it?"

"A stabbing, aching emptiness inside me, right here." He gestured again with his hand to his stomach.

"You're hungry?"

"Hungry?"

On the other hand, machines didn't eat. "Do you ever eat food?" I asked. "Drink water?"

"I eat something that comes in a tube and tastes like sawdust." Well, at least he knew what sawdust was. He shifted, a frown playing across his shadowed face. "This pain is distracting."

"Why don't I go for pizza?" I asked. "I usually eat after a mission, not before. Hunger sharpens the reflexes, y'know?"

The blank look on his face said he didn't know. And he clearly wasn't used to being hungry. I probably shouldn't have suggested going for pizza, but I was still equal parts horrified and fascinated by the living, breathing ghost-story in front of me. I'd never met anybody before who didn't know what hunger was. Had never met anybody who didn't know of pizza.

"How long until Ferretti leaves his meeting?" I asked.

"Twenty-five minutes, most likely."

"Then I'll be back in ten."

I grabbed some cash from my gym bag, pulled a coat on to conceal my guns, and slipped out the door before the Winter Soldier could even think about stopping me. On my way to the hotel, I'd clocked a place that did take-out, so I made my way there and ordered a large pizza margherita. The place was a dive, one of those small, damp places in which grease covers every surface, but I didn't need a gourmet meal, just something to fill the stomach of a ghost.

Back in the hotel room, the Winter Soldier was attempting resolute stoicism by his haunt at the window, but there was a shadow of something on his face… pain, fear, concern. It made him seem human, more human than I thought he could be.

I tossed the pizza box onto the bed. "Dig in, Soldat."

Instead, he watched the box with wary caution, as if it were a viper that might suddenly decide to bite. He hovered by the sniper rifle, alert and unsure. For a brief second, I felt more like a mother than an assassin.

"It won't bite," I told him. "And neither will I."

"Your teeth wouldn't make a very effective weapon," he said.

I fought back my smirk. Once or twice, during my training in the Red Room, I'd resorted to biting as a way to force an opponent to disengage. It was a tactic not many people expected, but even a feeble weapon is better than no weapon.

"You're very literal, aren't you?"

He nodded. "I read a book, once."

"Green Eggs and Ham?" I asked.

The Winter Soldier shook his head. "It was about trees."

"Sounds riveting." I pushed the box, with its aroma of cheese and grease, towards the Soldier. Still, he ignored it. I could see I was going to have to lead the horse to water _and_ teach him how to drink. "Alright, ladies first, huh?" I opened the box and pulled out one of the slices. I'd ordered thin-crust, because Americans just go crazy with their deep-pans and their stuffed-crusts, and I didn't think gorging on pizza base was a good idea right before a mission.

"Why is it round?" the Soldier asked as he watched me tuck into a helping of blocked arteries on bread.

"Because it's pizza," I said between mouthfuls. "You really haven't had pizza before?"

"No. It doesn't look very appealing."

"This coming from the guy who eats sawdust from a tube? I promise you, this is _so_ much better. And if you like this, you'll love a pepperoni stuffed-crust."

Slowly, tentatively, he approached, every inch of him tense. What a strange contradiction he was. Completely unafraid of coming face to face with a knife. Nonchalant about arming me and turning his back on me. He spoke of killing without batting an eye. Yet, the prospect of some unknown food had him hanging back like a child unsure of what was expected of him. Something outside his programming, perhaps? Uncharted territory?

He took a bite and chewed slowly at first. Whatever he'd eaten in the past, this was obviously much better, because the slow chewing quickly turned into a steady, ravenous devouring of slice after slice. While he was distracted by the intricacies of mozzarella, I decided to take advantage.

I slid the box, with its two remaining slices, a little closer to him. "What's your arm made of?"

"Arm," he said.

"I meant your metal arm."

He swallowed a mouthful of pizza and glanced at me only briefly before grabbing another slice. "Metal."

Was he being taciturn, or did he truly not know? "How did you get it?" I asked.

He froze mid-chew, eyes glazing over as his gaze turned inward. For a moment, he was still. Then, he winced, and resumed chewing. "I don't know."

I found that hard to believe. At some point, he must've had an accident, or been 'volunteered' for the surgery. Having an arm lost or amputated and replaced with a cybernetic construct was not something you would just forget. Or… maybe he was just a slightly more mobile version of RoboCop. Perhaps some major head trauma had left him unable to function, so somebody with know-how had made the Winter Soldier out of the dying husk. It would certainly explain retrograde amnesia, but it left one small matter still too unresolved for my liking.

"Do you honestly not remember me?" I pushed.

"I've never seen you before today," he replied.

"St. Petersburg? The Millennium celebrations? Vasiliy Aristov, and his family?"

"I've never been to Leningrad."

I leaned back against the bed's headboard to get a wider view of my partner-in-crime. "It hasn't been called that in over a decade." With every question he answered, the mystery of the Winter Soldier deepened.

He scowled at me, an expression that was both childish and defiant. "I get confused sometimes."

"And where—"

"Enough questions!" This time, there was nothing childish in his expression. He'd switched in a heartbeat from being confused and distracted to angry as a fighting dog. His growled command sliced through the silence of the room, bringing back the tension which had been conspicuously absent since I'd brought the pizza. "No more talking."

I didn't dare open my mouth to respond. All my life, I'd trained to be cold, ruthless and unemotional. All the other spies and assassins I'd met had been the same. Kind of a prerequisite for succeeding in our line of work. But the Winter Soldier, whether he was a man, a machine or something in between, he swung from mood to mood in a way that was unpredictable and dangerous. Until I could get a better handle on what might trigger his anger—and possibly provoke an attack—I needed to tread lightly.

He returned to the window. I stayed by the bed. But even though he resumed his overwatch, he wasn't as settled as he had been earlier. His jaw was clenched, and I heard the quiet grinding of teeth. His metal hand groaned and creaked as it tensed and flexed as if working up to some act of violence. He stood stiff and alert, his shoulders taut beneath his protective vest. I had, rather foolishly, poked the sleeping dog. A dog that now licked its lips, and spoke more to the shadows than to me.

"Have you ever killed a child?"

The words were uttered so softly that I barely caught them, and they were such a surprise that for a long moment, I struggled with how to answer. But why lie?

"I take it you're not familiar with the Black Widow training programme?" I asked.

He sneered from the shadows. "The activities of itsy bitsy spiders are of no interest to me." I said nothing. _Itsy Bitsy Spider_ was a nursery rhyme. Not the sort of thing a machine ought to know. When I failed to rise to the bait, the Winter Soldier closed his eyes and let his head fall forward slightly, so that his dark hair brushed against his face. "I think I killed a child. I remember brief flashes. A scream. My hand covering a small mouth. I reach for my knife. There's a splash of red… and red hair." He opened his eyes and stared at me. "Like yours."

"That was St. Petersburg," I told him. "Her name was Svetlana Aristova."

"I killed her?"

I gave a brief nod, and didn't get the response I was expecting. The Winter Soldier turned and gripped the window-frame with his metal hand, as if winded. The frame splintered in his grip, shedding wood slivers all over the floor. I tensed, my right hand straying towards the pistol at my hip.

His voice this time was only a whisper. "I think there may have been others."

What could I say? _Probably? Undoubtedly? So what? You're not the only one to have taken a young life?_ Here, now, those words—no matter how true—would probably get me killed. Offering sympathy would get me killed. Moving would get me killed. All I could do was sit there and watch the turmoil of a man burdened by his conscience. That he only _thought_ there might be others, but didn't know for sure, simply reinforced my theory that his mind was broken beyond repair.

Suddenly, he changed again. He straightened up, examining his metal hand and the splinters lodged between the plates of his fingers. He flexed them several times, as if seeing them for the first time. Then, he turned, and looked at me with eyes full of confusion.

"Are you real? Is _this_ real? Or are you one of _them?_ "

He stepped forward, and I quickly scooted back, my heart pounding a wild salsa in my chest. I'd come here expecting an assassin, and instead had been teamed up with a programmed killer with a tenuous grasp on reality. This wasn't what I'd signed up for. It wasn't something _anybody_ signed up for.

"I'm real," I said, desperately searching for some way of calming his madness. If trying to force his memories of St. Petersburg had caused this separation from reality, maybe forcing him to recall a more recent memory would repair that tenuous bridge. "This is all real. Think back to your briefing. The man we're supposed to terminate."

He stopped. His gaze darted from side to side. "Ferretti. He controls the Mafia here."

"That's right." He'd grasped the lifeline I'd tossed him, so I gave him more. "You're going to take him out from your position by the window. I'll be on the ground, to mop up the mess."

I held my breath. Inside my chest, my heart was beating like it never had before. Not only was my life at risk, the mission was, too. Somehow, I had to get things back on track. Perhaps a man—or machine—burdened by guilt, needed an added incentive.

"They told me some of the things Ferretti does," she lied. "Extorting 'protection' fees from local business owners. Making their family members 'disappear' if they can't pay. Embezzlement. And stealing shipments of much-needed medicinal drugs, for sale on the black market. Thousands die in hospitals because of his greed." I decided to avoid any mention of violent crimes. The Winter Soldier was violent enough already. No need to push him back to thoughts of killing.

As quickly as he'd become agitated, he settled back down. He returned to the window, anchored back in reality. Slowly, quietly, I let out the breath I'd been holding. And when he spoke, I almost jumped out of my skin.

"Movement."

The rapid beat of my heart began to steady. This was familiar ground. Just another night at work. An island of normalcy in a sea of _freakin' weird_.

"Guess it's showtime." I moved for the door and stopped halfway out to offer one final instruction. "Be careful who you're pointing that thing at."

"I never miss." His claim was flat and emotionless. Not a gloat, but a statement of fact. "Natalia?" His call halted me right before I left. "I think after this is done, I would like to try some of that pepperoni stuffed-crust pizza."

I nodded. If the homicidal manchine _(part man, part machine)_ wanted an after-assassination pizza, he would get an after-assassination pizza. Though, maybe I'd suggest take-out again. I didn't see the night ending well, if I tried to take him to Domino's.

I wasn't questioned by the hotel clerk as I left the building for the second time that night. It was a wise policy for a hotel clerk to employ, and he probably saw many women come and go from the _Howard Johnson's_ rooms.

I could speak of how the mission went. I could describe how, with a single head-shot, the Winter Soldier took out his target. How I shot two of his lackeys before pursuing one who fled down an alley. How even though I wasn't in his sights, I was sure the Winter Soldier was still quickly, methodically, pulling the trigger of his rifle, eliminating his secondary targets and providing evidence for the claim he'd made.

I could describe how I returned to the scene, after dealing with my rabbit, and found bodies strewn across the sidewalk. How, once more, the Winter Soldier had left a trail of red as his only calling card. How I heard a groan and found a survivor, then consequently put him out of his misery.

I could talk about the mission, but it was both successful and mostly uneventful. There also seems little point in narrating how I returned to the hotel—the clerk had wisely fled at the first sound of gunshots _(note to self, employ a silenced weapon next time)_ —and pulled the hard-disk recorder from the hotel's CCTV system from under the desk. I would find some sewer to toss it into, somewhere that it would never be found.

Instead of remembering all that, I recall instead how I went back to the room, to return my borrowed guns and collect my DNA-ridden bag of gym-bunny evidence. The lock accepted my keycard, and I stepped into the room. My bag was atop the bed, but otherwise, the room was completely and utterly empty. The sniper rifle was gone, the bag of weapons was gone, and the empty pizza box was gone. The only sign that the Winter Soldier had ever been there was a small scattering of white-painted splinters on the floor beneath the windowsill.

It seemed that pepperoni pizza would have to wait.


	6. Cat and Mouse

_Warning: Prepare to shift to third-person perspective!_

* * *

And Then I Saw Red

 _6\. Cat and Mouse_

The ghosts of New York fell away, and Natasha was transported back to the hospital garden. The bench. The ducks. Fury. For a long moment, silence reigned, and she felt a bone-weary tiredness tug at her eyelids.

Fury's next words snapped her out of it.

"So, you survived your second encounter with the Winter Soldier. A claim I'm sure very few people can make."

"Yeah, but I wasn't on his list. I'm sure if I had been, the outcome would've been very different."

"You were on his list two days ago, and you're still here."

"Two days ago, I wasn't alone." If it hadn't been for Steve, for Sam and Maria and Fury himself, she would be dead. Up against the Winter Soldier, HYDRA's perfectly flawed killing machine, she would not have stood a chance.

She tossed the last of the kale to the ducks, and tucked the plastic bag into her pocket. The failing sunlight played across the upper windows of the hospital, and her gaze strayed to Steve's window once more. The anguish in his eyes, when he learned who was behind the Winter Soldier's mask, had set a note of regret and sympathy singing within her heart.

Ever since waking from the ice, Steve had been… distant. He went out of his way to avoid making friends, and ran a marathon every morning without seeming to know what he was running from, or what he was running to. At first, Natasha had thought he'd just found the transition from war to peace, from past to now, difficult to process. But after everything that had happened, after Insight and Pierce and… the Winter Soldier… she suspected Steve was still hurting over the loss of his best friend.

She owed it to him—to both of them—to help them find their way back to each other.

"Did you manage to track him down, after he disappeared from the hotel room?"

Natasha shook her head. "Didn't try. I had a plane to catch, and I knew the chances of finding him were slim. He'd been too thorough, and disappeared too quickly. I disposed of the guns at a construction site; dropped them into the foundations of some shopping mall being built. Then I got a change of clothes and made my flight back to Estonia. From there, I was picked up by Sergei, and we returned home."

"How long until you saw him again?" Fury prompted.

"Almost a year. I spent most of that year in Russia, predominantly undertaking industrial sabotage. The Winter Soldier had a busier time; in Geneva, he took out three scientists working on the LHC, and then he tangled with the Inagawa-kai family of the Yakuza in Tokyo."

Fury seemed surprised by her claim; one eyebrow rose beneath its patch. For Fury, that was surprise.

"How did you track him?"

"Indirectly. Most important assassinations are credited to someone or some group; there's always someone within the community who knows _whodunnit_. But Geneva and Tokyo… nobody claimed those kills, and they weren't credited to any one person or group. The few times I enquired, I was told ghost stories, so I guessed the Winter Soldier was responsible."

Fury stroked his chin with one leather-gloved hand. "Maybe with HYDRA's files out on the net, we'll finally be able to verify his activities." The stroking stopped and he turned his keen gaze back to her. "What was it like, seeing him again after that Mafia mission in New York?"

A smile crept across her lips as the memory began to unfold. "That… that was interesting."

"Tell me about it."

* * *

 _Author's note: As per request of Anonymous User, I've changed the ducks being fed bread in chapter 1 (and this chapter), to being fed kale. I'm always happy to speak out for environmental causes. Most bread is not only dangerous to birds, but it also fouls up waterways (especially standing water, like ponds) like you would not believe. Kale is a healthy and natural alternative to carbohydrates (which can lead to wing-deformities, mold-poisoning and nutritional deficiencies)._

 _On the subject of good causes, I offer all of my readers a New Year's challenge: give up all meat (including fish which, yes, is meat) for the month of January. Test your willpower to see if you can go a whole month without your favourite bacon sandwich/burger/kebab. Also, drink an extra glass of water per day. Nobody drinks enough water. Keep me informed of your progress. And if you're already living the vegetarian dream, take some extra karma-cookies!_


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